Re: Money is about expected future value....nothing more, nothing less
On Sunday, December 8, 2002, at 09:26 AM, Steve Schear wrote:
Mark cited the Bank of England, not U.S. law. I don't know what British law is in this regard. But I will tell you that the notion that U.S. dollars must be accepted as "payment" in the U.S. (using the variant that corrects Mark's typographical error above) is false. The language is along the lines of "this note good for all debts public and private." This does not stop parties from agreeing to transfers in yak brains, or houses, or gold, or tantalum. It says that if Alice agrees to pay Bob 50 dollars ($50), with no special payment instructions agreed to, and Alice at some point gives Bob a $50 piece of U.S. currency, she has fulfilled her debt obligation under U.S. law. I surmise, but have not verified, that this sort of language was added to banknotes to better ensure that people accepted the banknotes as being equivalent to specie (gold and silver). --Tim May "Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity." --Robert A. Heinlein
From: "Tim May" <tcmay@got.net>
Mark cited the Bank of England, not U.S. law. I don't know what British law is in this regard.
It does appear that the law in England is not as "demanding" as I believed: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/legaltender.htm <<The concept of legal tender is often misunderstood. Contrary to popular opinion, legal tender is not a means of payment that must be accepted by the parties to a transaction, but rather a legally defined means of payment that should not be refused by a creditor in satisfaction of a debt.>> Mark
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Tim May